An autobiography (from Greek auto- ["self" or "without external prompting"] + bíos ["life"] + gráphō ["write"]) is a biography written by its subject. That is to say, the author writes about, and often dramatizes, their own life.
The concept is at most Older Than Feudalism, but the term wasn't coined until 1797 by English scholar William Taylor—though he called it "pedantic".
A memoir is a type of autobiography where rather than going through the author's entire life, it takes a more personal and emotional approach to a specific point in their life. The two terms are often used interchangeably.
Sub-Trope of Biography. Almost always written in First Person Narration. For purported autobiographical works which are later revealed to be fabricated, see Based on a Great Big Lie.
Please note that this page is only for true, nonfictional autobiographies. It's not for semi-autobiographical works that are inspired by the author's life but still ultimately fictional (e.g. The Fabelmans). Please also note that while some autobiographies change a few things for the sake of telling a story, others are so accurate that they can't even have pages without violating our Real Life Troping policies.
Examples:
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Comic Books
- Almost American Girl has Robin Ha depict her own alienation after moving to the US from South Korea.
- American Splendor is a series of comics written by Cleveland native Harvey Pekar about the day-to-day events in his life.
- The Arab Of The Future by Riad Sattouf is about his life growing up in Libya and Syria, being raised by a Syrian father and a French mother.
- Be Prepared details author Vera Brosgol's mostly miserable time at an all-Russian summer camp.
- El Deafo, aside from depicting humans as rabbits, is a mostly faithful account of author Cece Bell's early life after losing most of her hearing from meningitis.
- The Fire Never Goes Out is a collection of autobiographical comics by ND Stevenson detailing his time in art school, publishing NIMONA, and mental illness, among other things.
- A First Time for Everything by Dan Santat is about a life-changing trip across Europe he took in middle school.
- Four Eyes, written by Rex Ogle, is about his struggles to fit in during middle school.
- The Friends series, written by Shannon Hale:
- Real Friends is about Shannon making her first friend ever and struggling to join her friend group.
- Best Friends is about her struggling to fit in with the popular kids in sixth grade.
- Friends Forever is about her depression and insecurities during eighth grade.
- Fun Home by Alison Bechdel goes into her early life, particularly discovering her sexuality and her relationship with her father.
- Gender Queer: A Memoir is an autobiographical Coming of Age Story revolving around artist Maia Kobabe's gender identity.
- The works of Lucy Kinsley:
- French Milk is about a trip to Paris that she and her mother took shortly before their milestone birthdays.
- An Age Of License details her solo travels through Europe and Scandinavia on a book tour.
- Displacement is about accompanying her grandparents on a Caribbean cruise ship and coming to terms with their increasing physical and mental decline.
- Relish My Life In The Kitchen is a series of vignettes about her childhood using food and cooking as a Framing Device.
- Something New details Lucy's engagement and wedding to her husband John while examining wedding traditions and her desire to have a feminist and creative wedding as opposed to social norms on weddings.
- Kid Gloves has Lucy detail the first time she got pregnant and the hellish nine months that followed. It ends with her nearly dying giving birth to her son (they both survive) and a plea to take women's pregnancy issues seriously.
- Marzi A Memoir is the author Marzena "Marzi" Sowa’s childhood in 1980s Soviet Poland.
- Maus is mainly a biography about Art Spiegelman's father Vladek, a Polish Jew and Holocaust survivor, but a good portion of it is dedicated to Art himself interviewing Vladek to get inspiration for the comic he's making.
- Persepolis tells the history of Marjane Satrapi from her childhood during the fall of the Shah to her exile away from the Islamic Republic of Iran.
- The Smile series by Raina Telgemeier:
- Welcome To St Hell by Lewis Hancox shows his experiences as a teenager struggling through his transition.
Fan Works
- The Bolt Chronicles: An In-Universe example. In "The Autobiography," Bolt attempts to memorialize his life story in response to the many unflattering fanfics written about him. When he tries to talk it into the computer using a speech program, it comes out as barking.
Films — Live-Action
- Rocketman (2019) is a musical retelling of Elton John's rise, fall, and rehab. While John didn't write the movie, he was an executive producernote and called most of the shots.
- Weird: The Al Yankovic Story was co-written by "Weird Al" Yankovic himself, detailing his life and career while also parodying the trend of musician biopics of the time. Almost none of it is accurate to real life—Al wasn't in a relationship with Madonna, for one, and he definitely didn't die, either.
Literature
- Always with Honor is the autobiography of General Pyotr Wrangel, leader of the White Army during the Russian Civil War. The book chronicles his rise from cavalry officer, to general, to Supreme Commander of the White forces.
- Isaac Asimov:
- Opus 100: The first autobiography published by Dr. Asimov, this book focuses on his journey as a writer; his earliest attempts at storytelling, to his first few novels, to his most recent efforts as both a Science Fiction writer and a writer of science fact. This novel takes its name from being the one-hundredth book he published. He later published similar books (Opus 200 and Opus 300) as his 200th and 300th books.
- The Early Asimov: This Anthology is an autobiographical account of Dr Asimov's first eleven years of professional publication. It's the second biographical account he wrote, and he focused on his interactions with the great editor John W. Campbell.
- The two volumes In Memory Yet Green and In Joy Still Felt are more conventional autobiographies covering his life during the periods 1920-1954 and 1954-1978. He had intended to write a follow-up volume The Scenes of Life continuing the story up to the end of the century; however, when he realized that he wasn't going to live that long he instead wrote a new autobiography covering his entire life, published posthumously as I, Asimov.
- The Autobiography of Malcolm X is about how Malcolm X lived, from his birth to his rise in the Nation of Islam.
- Confessions, the first known autobiography, details the events from Augustine's birth (he had to extrapolate what that was like from other infants) to his ultimate conversion to Christianity in his mid-thirties.
- The title of Confessions was also used by Jean-Jacques Rousseau for his own memoirs, though it is unclear if the title was inspired by Augustine's autobiography or not.
- The Disaster Artist was written by Greg Sestero about his experiences as an actor in the notoriously terrible movie The Room.
- Everything I Know About Love by journalist Dolly Alderton is about the author's teen years in suburban North London, university days in Exeter and years spent housesharing with her friends in Camden.
- Ozzy Osbourne's memoir I Am Ozzy chronicles his storied career as a heavy metal vocalist, sprinkled with humorous anecdotes prior to, during, and after his career in Black Sabbath.
- If This Is a Man by Primo Levi is about the time he spent in Auschwitz-Buna.
- I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings has Maya Angelou write of her own childhood experiences and trauma.
- Jennette McCurdy published I'm Glad My Mom Died, about her real experiences as a child star with a Stage Mom.
- Moab Is My Washpot is a memoir by Stephen Fry about the first twenty years of his life, focussing in particular on his time at boarding school as a teenager.
- Me: Stories of My Life, written by Katharine Hepburn, uncovers her private life, struggles, and successes throughout her 80 years.
- The Pianist from Syria - A Memoir: An autobiography of Palestinian-Syrian refugee and YouTube star Aeham Ahmad.
- Notes Left Behind is an autobiography centered around a girl named Elena Desserich, who was diagnosed with Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma (DIPG) in December 2006 and passed away in August 2007 at age 6. It is written by Elena's parents, Brooke and Keith, and tells their daughter's story from their perspective in a diary format. Despite Elena's passing, the book ends in a "Ray of Hope" Ending with Brooke and Keith talking about how their daughter inspired them partly thanks to her secretly writing notes she scattered around their house post-cancer diagnosis and setting up an organization called Cure Starts Now to raise awareness for childhood cancer.
- Prince Harry's memoir Spare details his life up to that point, revealing a lot of personal details about The British Royal Family.
- Imperial German soldier Ernst Jünger's seminal World War I memoir Storm of Steel details what life in the trenches was like for the average grunt.
- Traveling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen is Jane Hawking's recounting of her tumultuous relationship with Stephen Hawking under the shadow of ALS. It was eventually made into a movie that takes some slight liberties with the material.
- Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1571), famous Italian goldsmith, sculptor, and painter, wrote the autobiography Vita ("Life"), in which he, among other things, describes three murders he committed.
- Where Am I Now? True Stories of Girlhood and Accidental Fame is an autobiography by Mara Wilson about her life as a child star and eventual fallout from Hollywood.
Live-Action TV
- The Brittas Empire: In-Universe, Brittas wrote an autobiography about his own life, I Believe, during the period between series 4 and 5, with proceedings from the book going to charity. We don't get to hear too much about it, but he wrote a lot about his Deputy Manager Laura, which he has been implied to have started falling in love with in the episodes prior. His pool assistant Tim on the other hand gets one throwaway mention in the entire book.
- In-Universe example in NewsRadio. In "Super Karate Monkey Death Car", Jimmy James's autobiography, Jimmy James: Capitalist Lion Tamer, is selling better in Japan than in the USA. He decides to have it the Japanese edition translated back into English. The changes start with the new title, Jimmy James: Macho Business Donkey Wrestler. It gets worse (and funnier) from there.
Puppet Shows
- The Book of Pooh: An In-Universe example in "Tigger's Autobiography". After listening to Owl's reading of The Life of Hoot Johnson, a biography about Hoot Johnson, Tigger is inspired to find someone to write his biography. He tries to get Rabbit, Piglet, and Pooh to write about his first day in the Hundred Acre Wood, but each of them puts in things he doesn't remember and leaves out what he does. After Tigger feels discouraged, Pooh tells him that maybe he can write his own biography, as Owl told him that a biography written about a person by that same person is called an autobiography. This inspires Tigger to write his autobiography—which ends up only being a few sentences long.
